David F,

Where did you read this history? Is it not an interpretation fabricated to support your prejudice? History is always being rewritten in order to correct the mistakes of past historians who were writing under many incorrect presuppositions common to their time. For example it is generally recognised that Edward Gibbon produced a very jaundiced and unfair account of the role of the Church in European history after the fall of the Roman empire. I suggest you read the book I reviewed and assess the evidence for yourself. You never know, your dislike of anything to do with Christianity may be tempered.

The book of the topic has this :
..as this is the kingdom of the Franks (free men)..we ordered and do order.. that such servitudes be restored to freedom..
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This order (!) is from pagan, human politics rather than spiritual origins. How can liberalism be attributed to ecclesiastical sources in such orders?

Dear Sells,

My prejudice? Have you considered your prejudice? Are you objective about Christianity? To claim the good that Christianity has done as consistent with its essence and dismiss the harm that it has done as the work of evil men as you have done is not the mindset of one who tries to be objective. Here the words attributed to Jesus might be appropriate. Matthew 7:1-5 KJV Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. I feel I am far less prejudiced than you.

I don’t dislike everything about Christianity. I dislike your dismissal of the harm it has done. When Christians do things that I consider good I will go along with them. I have participated in peace vigils with Anglicans and Catholics. There are religions I consider worse than Christianity. Hinduism with its caste system and its disregard for women as in the custom of suttee which the British managed to get rid of is worse in my opinion than Christianity. Buddhism with its emphasis on questioning rather than faith I regard as superior to Christianity.

Gibbon is old hat. He is probably the best historian when it comes to style, but he is not as reliable as more modern historians with better sources. I quoted Gibbon, but he is not my main source. I have read much history. I have mentioned most of my sources in my posts. If you wish to contest my facts about Christianity rather than my interpretation mention something specific, and we can discuss it.

This year I have read:

Kevin Burns’ Eastern Philosophy. That has much on the eastern religions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.

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MacCulloch’s “A History of Christianity”

On the cover is: “Encompassing wars, empires, reformers, apostles, sects and crusaders, it shows how Christianity has brought humanity to the most terrible acts of cruelty – and inspired its most sublime accomplishments.”

Wilson’s “The Meaning of Human Existence”

Wilson covers much of the same ground that religions do.

The following is from the book:

“Most serious writers on religion conflate the transcendent quest for meaning with the tribalistic defense of creation myths. They accept, or fear to deny, the existence of a personal deity. They read into the creation myths humanity’s effort to communicate with the deity, as part of the search for an uncorrupted life now and beyond death. Intellectual compromisers one and all, they include liberal theologians of the Niebuhr school, philosophers battening on learned ambiguity, literary admirers of C. S. Lewis, and others persuaded, after deep thought, that there must be Something Out There. They tend to be unconsciousness of prehistory and the biological evolution of human instinct, both of which beg to spread light on this important subject.”

Schama, Simon, “The Story of the Jews, volume 1 – Finding the Words”

Jenkins’ The Great and Holy War

How religion affected and was affected by WW1

Jenkins’ The Jesus Wars

The Christian debates in the fifth century which determined the doctrines successive generations of Christians accepted.

However, you try to rewrite history and turn it on its head. From my reading of history which is much more extensive than just Gibbon Christianity is primarily responsible for the Dark Ages. The attempt to climb out of the Dark Ages was fought by most of Christianity. To credit Christianity for European civilisation is laughable. Europe has lived in a Christian milieu for most of its history so, of course, it has been greatly influenced by Christianity. However, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the persecution of heretics, the forced conversions, the massacres of Jews and even the opposition to having a literate populace who could read the Bible are products of Christianity. Do you contend that any of the foregoing is not factual?

continued

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MacCulloch’s “A History of Christianity”

On the cover is: “Encompassing wars, empires, reformers, apostles, sects and crusaders, it shows how Christianity has brought humanity to the most terrible acts of cruelty – and inspired its most sublime accomplishments.”

Wilson’s “The Meaning of Human Existence”

Wilson covers much of the same ground that religions do.

From the book:

“Most serious writers on religion conflate the transcendent quest for meaning with the tribalistic defense of creation myths. They accept, or fear to deny, the existence of a personal deity. They read into the creation myths humanity’s effort to communicate with the deity, as part of the search for an uncorrupted life now and beyond death. Intellectual compromisers one and all, they include liberal theologians of the Niebuhr school, philosophers battening on learned ambiguity, literary admirers of C. S. Lewis, and others persuaded, after deep thought, that there must be Something Out There. They tend to be unconsciousness of prehistory and the biological evolution of human instinct, both of which beg to spread light on this important subject.”

Schama, Simon, “The Story of the Jews, volume 1 – Finding the Words”

Jenkins’ The Great and Holy War

How religion affected and was affected by WW1

Jenkins’ The Jesus Wars

The Christian debates in the fifth century which determined the doctrines successive generations of Christians accepted.

However, you try to rewrite history and turn it on its head. From my reading of history which is much more extensive than just Gibbon Christianity is primarily responsible for the Dark Ages. The attempt to climb out of the Dark Ages was fought by most of Christianity. To credit Christianity for European civilisation is laughable. Europe has lived in a Christian milieu for most of its history so, of course, it has been greatly influenced by Christianity. However, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the persecution of heretics, the forced conversions, the massacres of Jews and even the opposition to having a literate populace who could read the Bible are products of Christianity. Do you contend that any of the foregoing sentence is not supported by fact?

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Dear Sells,

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You wrote to david f. :

« History is always being rewritten in order to correct the mistakes of past historians who were writing under many incorrect presuppositions common to their time. »
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As I am sure you are well aware, history is not always being rewritten just to correct mistakes. It is also rewritten for a number of other reasons, a common one being denial – of the Holocaust, for example.

Historians not only relate events, they also interpret them and ... there are as many interpretations as there are historians.

Our vision of historical events may be determined by other factors as well :

For example, when I attended primary school in the Queensland bush I was taught that Napoleon was a tyrant and a warmonger. Whereas my children, who grew up in France, were taught that he was France’s first emperor, a great military leader and conqueror and a national hero. Napoleon Bonaparte is associated with the glorious era when France was at the height of its power and reigned over most of Europe.

The same historical events were seen negatively by me and positively by my children.

There was no revisionism, no historical denial, no “negationism”. The same events simply looked different from the winning side than they did from the losing side – just as the same world cup rugby match looks different from an English point of view than from an Australian point of view.

Napoleon, himself, is reported to have remarked: « History is a set of lies agreed upon ».

I see that Larry Siedentop whose recent book « Inventing the Individual: the Origins of Western Liberalism » which you have reviewed here, is, according to his biography on Wikipedia, a U.S.-born British political philosopher with a special interest in nineteenth-century French liberalism.

The fact that neither Siedentop nor david f. is an historian, as such, does not mean that we should not ask in relation to Siedenttop as you asked of david f.: « Is it not an interpretation fabricated to support (his) prejudice? ».

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